Castaway
by Millennium Slinky
Summary: Kaiba, Otogi, and Malik: stranded on a strange island, with only themselves, a lot of dinosaurs, and the alltoofriendly ‘natives’ for company...not your ordinary picnic. Malik’s lost the Rod, but Kaiba’s lost his brother...


**Castaway**

Seto Kaiba, Otogi Ryuuji, and Malik Ishtar: stranded on an island in the middle of the ocean, with only themselves, a _lot_ of dinosaurs, and the all-too-friendly 'natives' for company...not your ordinary picnic.  Malik's lost the Rod, but Kaiba's lost his brother...

Rated PG-13 for possible violence, mild language, and...umm...huge scary monsters with big, pointy teeth?  ^_^

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

He was cold and he was wet, but he could feel the sun beating down upon his back.  The side of his face was pressed into what had to be sand, and there was something slimy draped over his right arm.

What the hell?

He tried to open his eyes, but realized he didn't want to.  He tried moving his fingers, and found he could.  So he was alive, even though it had been somewhat obvious before.  He was alive and had no clue whatsoever as to where he was.

He lay there in the cold sand for many long minutes, relishing the warmth from above, when he remembered.

* * * * *

_"Nii-sama!  Is something wrong?"_

_"It's just a storm."_

_"Will we be able to get away safely?"_

_"The wind's not strong enough to damage the helicopter.  Don't worry, little brother."_

_"If you say so, Seto."_

_"What the - !?!"_

_"Seto, what's happening?!?"_

_"The storm just hit us!  I didn't think it would be – "_

_"Are we going to die, nii-sama?"_

_"Not if I have anything to say about it..._

* * * * *

He finally gave in and let tears leak out of the corners of his still-closed eyes, let his hands dig into the sand.

"I couldn't save him..." he whispered to himself.  "I failed."  He let the cold penetrate his bones as he forced himself to sit up in the damp sand.  "I failed."  He opened his eyes and finally took in the strange place he had been washed up at.

As he had suspected, it was a beach, but only a bare strip of sand under a stormy gray sky, bordered by a thick jungle that began about thirty feet away.  The beach was scattered with large, nondescript gray rocks and broken shells.  The usual.  There was sand in the folds of his clothes and down his neck.  Oh, joy.

He was too tired.  He didn't want to think anymore.  He just wanted to fall back onto the cold sand and retreat into blackness, blessed blackness.

So he did.

* * * * *

When he woke he was staring into a pair of bright green eyes that were uncomfortably familiar, listening to a voice that was equally familiar.

"...this can't be happening.  I'm dreaming.  I'm dreaming.  This _cannot_ be happening to me...!  Why, Kami-sama, why?!?"  Silence for several moments, and then, exasperated, "Oh.  Great.  You're awake now, aren't you?"

The eyes narrowed, the forehead of their owner creasing as he frowned down at the now-conscious shipwreckee.  "You had to shipwreck yourself here and ruin my newly-found happiness for _what_ reason?"

"What, is this some kind of beach resort?" Seto Kaiba retorted, equally cross.  "Why am I here?  More importantly, why are _you_ here?"

Otogi Ryuuji sniffed and backed away so that he was no longer hovering over the none-too-happy CEO, who raised an eyebrow and got to his feet, one of the reasons for this being the obvious height advantage it gave him.

"_I'm_ here because it's my _job_ to find shipwrecked people like _yourself_," the dice master said acidly, now forced to look up at the other teenager.

"Your 'job'?"

Otogi shrugged and began walking further along the beach.  Kaiba noticed that his usually over-gelled hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail, which said hair was already beginning to escape.  The black line below his left eye, however, was still there.  Perhaps it was a tattoo instead of makeup as Kaiba had suspected before.  He also noted that the clothes Otogi was wearing were decidedly archaic in style.

Kaiba quickened his strides until he'd caught up.  "Where's the nearest hotel or whatever?"

Otogi laughed hollowly, sending chills up the CEO's spine for no apparent reason.  "Hotel?  There are none."

"What do you mean?!"

"I meant exactly what I said."  Otogi stopped to stare the other in the eye – well, as best he could when Kaiba was at least four inches taller than himself.  "If you're looking for skyscrapers and cutting-edge technology, those are things you'll never see again."

"_What_?!?"  Kaiba could not believe what he was hearing.  He'd always thought the dice-obsessed teen's perception of the world was rather skewed...  Hit by a sudden flash of inspiration, he pulled his cell phone out from an inner pocket and began to dial his secretary's number...

"It won't work," Otogi said, watching him uninterestedly, an almost bored expression on his face.

Kaiba held his one sanity-saving piece of technology close to his ear – and heard only static.

"No...no..."

In frustration, he through the malfunctioning device away.  Otogi's unnervingly green eyes followed the motion until it disappeared into the sea, then re-attached themselves to Kaiba's deceptively impassive face.  "See?  Told you so."

Kaiba balled his hands into fists.  _Must...not...kill...idiot...must...not...kill..._  "Tell me the truth.  _Where_ _are_ _we_?"

Otogi arched one perfect eyebrow.  "Like you'll believe me.  But the bare bones of it...you are standing on the southwest coast of an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean."

"Uninhabited?"

Otogi shook his head.  "There are plenty of people."

"Then what the hell is the _problem_ with this place?"

Otogi smiled sleepily, eyes half-shut.  "Firstly, the lack of technology.  Though to people who are not Seto Kaiba, that wouldn't be much of a problem.  Secondly, there is no communication whatsoever with the outside world.  Thirdly, there is no way back."

"Huh?"

The black-haired teenager looked as if he was about to start laughing hysterically.  "There is _no_ _way_ _back_.  End of story."

"Oh?  I'll just..."  Kaiba stopped.  No phone.  No briefcase, and, more importantly, no laptop.  The end of the world had come for Seto Kaiba.  No laptop meant no getting work done, and no work meant no more Kaiba Corporation.  No more CEO.  No more CEO meant no more money, and no more money meant no more house, no more _anything_...  Otogi was still watching him.  By now, Kaiba was very much creeped out by the fact that the inventor of Dungeon Dice Monsters didn't seem to need to blink.  "I'll find a boat somewhere..."

"Even if you get a boat, you won't be able to find a way past the reefs, the currents, and the storms.  How do you think you ended up here in the first place?  That was no ordinary hurricane."

That squashed any hope of getting back...as much as Kaiba would love to give Otogi a black eye right now, he seemed to know what he was talking about.  But oh, how he wished he could drop the icy mask and wail like Mokuba would've done given the circumstances.  "There's no _way_ I can be stuck here forever!"

"Look," snapped Otogi, emerald eyes flashing.  "We are _never_ getting off this island.  Never.  There's not even the slightest chance.  Don't think I haven't tried."

"And you've been here for how long?" said Kaiba skeptically, raising an eyebrow.

"Six months."  At the other's shocked expression, he tilted his head sideways and said in a patronizing tone of voice, "What?  Finally realized why no one had seen me for ages?"

Kaiba didn't answer for several minutes, until he finally asked, "Then why are _you_ down here, anyway?"

"Storm duty.  I'm here to look for survivors...in case you hadn't noticed the _huge_ hurricane that began several hours ago..."  Thus said, he cast a glance along the shoreline.  There was a bedraggled, seaweed-strewn, human-sized lump about a hundred yards away.  He started walking towards it.  Kaiba, focusing on not saying anything and not knowing what else to do, followed him.

"So...how large was that ship you were on?"

"Not a ship.  Helicopter.  Only myself and...and..."

"Your brother," finished Otogi quietly.  "Well, this could be him, then."  He pointed to the seaweed-covered lump.  "So...why were you in this region, anyway?"

"I was sent a message by a business partner in America about an urgent meeting.  Mokuba wanted to keep me company for once."  Suddenly he felt insecure without his briefcase.

Otogi laughed grimly.  "No chance of that now."  He knelt down and began pulling at the wet strands of seaweed, obviously trying to figure out if there was actually a sentient being underneath.  Great was his surprise when a tanned hand shot out of the seaweed and grabbed the collar of his shirt.

"Back away slowly," came a raspy, salt-irritated voice, and the hand let go.

Silence for several moments, and then...

"Damn!!  Where'd it go?"  There was some scrabbling in the pile of seaweed, until the blonde head of Malik Ishtar emerged.  Kaiba's heart sank.

Malik glared at the both of them.  "Out of my way!"  He struggled to his feet, and cast a glance around.  "Where _is_ this Raforsaken place?"

A humorless smile crossed Otogi's face.  "It's called Dinotopia."

"Ooh, that helps me a lot," snapped Malik.  Then he blinked, and a peculiar expression crossed his face.  "_Dino_topia?  As in..."

"Dinosaur," Otogi supplied.

Kaiba blinked, then shook his head and filed Otogi under the 'insane' category.  The Egyptian paled under his tan, but he soon regained his self-assurance.  "Dinosaurs have been extinct since before the reign of the pharaohs."  He blinked.  "I've seen you before, haven't I?"

Otogi nodded.  "Battle City.  You tried to kill my 'friends.'"  He wiggled his fingers as if making quotation marks around the word for emphasis.

Malik ignored the last comment.  "So tell me...what brings the three of us here?"

"Storm season," said Otogi, without missing a beat.  "I was washed up here a few months ago.  Kaiba – "  He inclined his head respectfully to the CEO, " – came by helicopter but was obviously brought in by the numerous hurricanes.  And you...?"

"Yacht," said Malik sullenly.

The dice master nodded almost imperceptibly, then lifted his head to continue scanning the shoreline.  He frowned and shaded his eyes, touching Kaiba's shoulder gently.  "There's something further along the shore," he said softly.

Kaiba nodded to show he'd heard, stripping off his sodden purple trenchcoat and squeezing some of the water out of it.  Otogi, with Malik trailing reluctantly behind, kept close to the ocean as he went off into the distance.

But as made to follow suit, he passed by the bundle of seaweed Malik had been tangled up in, and something glinted in the sun.  Something...something was calling to him.  He bent down and let his right hand fall upon a loose patch of sand and slimy plantlife...the edge of something gold poked up through the mess.

Malik had left the Millennium Rod.

Not knowing exactly why, Kaiba carefully unearthed the item and ran his hands over it.  There was something very strange lurking just under the golden surface...a strange voice in his mind...a feeling that he shouldn't return the Rod to the psychopath who'd left it behind.

That decided, he tucked it into the damp bundle he'd made of his trenchcoat and trudged along in Otogi's footprints.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A/N: Yes, in case you've read the books or seen the TV series, our heroes are stuck on Dinotopia.  It belongs to James Gurney.  ...oh yeah, and Yu-gi-oh! and all those yummy bishonen belong to Kazuki Takahashi (*sob*)...but whatever.  This isn't really a crossover...and yes, there _is_ something going on with the spirit of the Rod...but no more spoilers.  I'll just say Kaiba's never giving it back, and Malik won't miss it.  Reviews?  *puppy-dog eyes*


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